If you need to use UEFI to boot, we recommend not using the MBR at all for booting, as some systems support this, but others don't. Instead, we recommend using UEFI to boot GRUB, which in turn will load Linux. We refer to this method as the '''UEFI + GRUB (GPT)''' method.

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And yes, there are even more methods, some of which are documented on the [[Boot Methods]] page. We used to recommend a '''BIOS + GRUB (GPT)''' method but it is not consistently supported across a wide variety of hardware.

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'''The big question is -- which boot method should you use?''' Here's how to tell.

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;Principle 1 - Old School: If you can reliably boot System Rescue CD and it shows you an initial light blue menu, you are booting the CD using the BIOS, and it's likely that you can thus boot Funtoo Linux using the BIOS. So, go old-school and use BIOS booting, ''unless'' you have some reason to use UEFI, such as having a >2.2TB system disk. In that case, see Principle 2, as your system may also support UEFI booting.

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;Principle 2 - New School: If you can reliably boot System Rescue CD and it shows you an initial black and white menu -- congratulations, your system is configured to support UEFI booting. This means that you are ready to install Funtoo Linux to boot via UEFI. Your system may still support BIOS booting, but just be trying UEFI first. You can poke around in your BIOS boot configuration and play with this.

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;What's the Big Difference between Old School and New School?: Here's the deal. If you go with old-school MBR partitions, your <code>/boot</code> partition will be an ext2 filesystem, and you'll use <code>fdisk</code> to create your MBR partitions. If you go with new-school GPT partitions and UEFI booting, your <code>/boot</code> partition will be a vfat filesystem, because this is what UEFI is able to read, and you will use <code>gdisk</code> to create your GPT partitions. And you'll install GRUB a bit differently. That's about all it comes down to, in case you were curious.

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;Also Note: To install Funtoo Linux to boot via the New School UEFI method, you must boot System Rescue CD using UEFI -- and see an initial black and white screen. Otherwise, UEFI will not be active and you will not be able to set it up!

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{{Note|'''Some motherboards may appear to support UEFI, but don't.''' Do your research. For example, the Award BIOS in my Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 rev 1.1 has an option to enable UEFI boot for CD/DVD. '''This is not sufficient for enabling UEFI boot for hard drives and installing Funtoo Linux.''' UEFI must be supported for both removable media (so you can boot System Rescue CD using UEFI) as well as fixed media (so you can boot your new Funtoo Linux installation.) It turns out that later revisions of this board (rev 3.0) have a new BIOS that fully supports UEFI boot. This may point to a third principle -- know thy hardware.}}

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==== Old-School (BIOS/MBR) Method ====

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{{Note|Use this method if you are booting using your BIOS, and if your System Rescue CD initial boot menu was light blue. If you're going to use the new-school method, [[#New-School (UEFI/GPT) Method|click here to jump down to UEFI/GPT.]]}}

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===== Preparation =====

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First, it's a good idea to make sure that you've found the correct hard disk to partition. Try this command and verify that <code>/dev/sda</code> is the disk that you want to partition:

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<console>

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# ##i##fdisk -l /dev/sda

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Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes, 1250263728 sectors

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Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

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Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

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I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

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Disk label type: gpt

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# Start End Size Type Name

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1 2048 1250263694 596.2G Linux filesyste Linux filesystem

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</console>

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Now, it's recommended that you erase any existing MBR or GPT partition tables on the disk, which could confuse the system's BIOS at boot time. We do this using <code>sgdisk</code>:

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{{fancywarning|This will make any existing partitions inaccessible! You are '''strongly''' cautioned and advised to backup any critical data before proceeding.}}

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<console>

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# ##i##sgdisk --zap-all /dev/sda

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Creating new GPT entries.

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GPT data structures destroyed! You may now partition the disk using fdisk or

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other utilities.

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</console>

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This output is also nothing to worry about, as the command still succeded:

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<console>

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***************************************************************

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Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format

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in memory.

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***************************************************************

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</console>

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===== Partitioning =====

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Now we will use <code>fdisk</code> to create the MBR partition table and partitions:

{{Note|Use this method if you are booting using UEFI, and if your System Rescue CD initial boot menu was black and white. If it was light blue, this method will not work.}}

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The <tt>gdisk</tt> commands to create a GPT partition table are as follows. Adapt sizes as necessary, although these defaults will work for most users. Start <code>gdisk</code>:

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<console>

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# ##i##gdisk

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</console>

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Within <tt>gdisk</tt>, follow these steps:

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'''Create a new empty partition table''' (This ''will'' erase all data on the disk when saved):

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<console>

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Command: ##i##o ↵

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This option deletes all partitions and creates a new protective MBR.

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Proceed? (Y/N): ##i##y ↵

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</console>

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'''Create Partition 1''' (boot):

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<console>

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Command: ##i##n ↵

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Partition Number: ##i##1 ↵

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First sector: ##i##↵

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Last sector: ##i##+500M ↵

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Hex Code: ##i##↵

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</console>

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'''Create Partition 2''' (swap):

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<console>

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Command: ##i##n ↵

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Partition Number: ##i##2 ↵

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First sector: ##i##↵

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Last sector: ##i##+4G ↵

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Hex Code: ##i##8200 ↵

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</console>

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'''Create Partition 3''' (root):

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<console>

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Command: ##i##n ↵

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Partition Number: ##i##3 ↵

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First sector: ##i##↵

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Last sector: ##i##↵##!i## (for rest of disk)

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Hex Code: ##i##↵

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</console>

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Along the way, you can type "<tt>p</tt>" and hit Enter to view your current partition table. If you make a mistake, you can type "<tt>d</tt>" to delete an existing partition that you created. When you are satisfied with your partition setup, type "<tt>w</tt>" to write your configuration to disk:

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'''Write Partition Table To Disk''':

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<console>

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Command: ##i##w ↵

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Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): ##i##Y ↵

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</console>

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The partition table will now be written to disk and <tt>gdisk</tt> will close.

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Now, your GPT/GUID partitions have been created, and will show up as the following ''block devices'' under Linux:

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* <tt>/dev/sda1</tt>, which will be used to hold the <tt>/boot</tt> filesystem,

Before your newly-created partitions can be used, the block devices need to be initialized with filesystem ''metadata''. This process is known as ''creating a filesystem'' on the block devices. After filesystems are created on the block devices, they can be mounted and used to store files.

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Let's keep this simple. Are you using old-school MBR partitions? If so, let's create an ext2 filesystem on /dev/sda1:

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<console>

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# ##i##mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1

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</console>

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If you're using new-school GPT partitions for UEFI, you'll want to create a vfat filesystem on /dev/sda1, because this is what UEFI is able to read:

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<console>

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# ##i##mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sda1

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</console>

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Now, let's create a swap partition. This partition will be used as disk-based virtual memory for your Funtoo Linux system.

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You will not create a filesystem on your swap partition, since it is not used to store files. But it is necessary to initialize it using the <code>mkswap</code> command. Then we'll run the <code>swapon</code> command to make your newly-initialized swap space immediately active within the live CD environment, in case it is needed during the rest of the install process:

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<console>

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# ##i##mkswap /dev/sda2

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# ##i##swapon /dev/sda2

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</console>

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Now, we need to create a root filesystem. This is where Funtoo Linux will live. We generally recommend ext4 or XFS root filesystems. If you're not sure, choose ext4. Here's how to create a root ext4 filesystem:

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<console>

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# ##i##mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3

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</console>

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...and here's how to create an XFS root filesystem, if you choose to use XFS:

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<console>

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# ##i##mkfs.xfs /dev/sda3

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</console>

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Your filesystems (and swap) have all now been initialized, so that that can be mounted (attached to your existing directory heirarchy) and used to store files. We are ready to begin installing Funtoo Linux on these brand-new filesystems.

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{{fancywarning|1=

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When deploying an OpenVZ host, please use ext4 exclusively. The Parallels development team tests extensively with ext4, and modern versions of <code>openvz-rhel6-stable</code> are '''not''' compatible with XFS, and you may experience kernel bugs.

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}}

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==== Mounting filesystems ====

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Mount the newly-created filesystems as follows, creating <code>/mnt/funtoo</code> as the installation mount point:

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<console>

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# ##i##mkdir /mnt/funtoo

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# ##i##mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/funtoo

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# ##i##mkdir /mnt/funtoo/boot

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# ##i##mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/funtoo/boot

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</console>

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Optionally, if you have a separate filesystem for <code>/home</code> or anything else:

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<console>

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# ##i##mkdir /mnt/funtoo/home

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# ##i##mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/funtoo/home

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</console>

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If you have <code>/tmp</code> or <code>/var/tmp</code> on a separate filesystem, be sure to change the permissions of the mount point to be globally-writeable after mounting, as follows: